​The Farming Years (1849 - 1973)

The old Condie Kitchen. Only some corrugated iron remains

​Bangalee Reserve is situated on two former farms – the Condie farm and the Weir farm. The Condie farm was known as 'Bellfields' and occupied the western half of the Reserve in the area where the picnic ground and river walks are now located. The Weir farm was further to the east and finished on the edges of Bangalee Creek.
 
Remains of both farms can be seen throughout the Reserve. The remains of the old Condie homestead are just up from the picnic ground while the Condie graves are located further up the slope to the east along the Condie’s walking track. There are also other remains scattered within a few hundred metres of the picnic area including the remains of a dairy, part of several horse-drawn ploughs, an old well, numerous fence posts, and several old farm roads complete with watercourse crossings made from local stone. At the very end of the River Track, there is a large rock with the level of the 1870 flood carved into it.
 
Two living relics of the Condie era include the large Bunya Pine just behind the old homestead and the large Oak in the picnic ground. Most of the Silky Oaks also date from the early farming period.

Besides farming, another key activity in the area was the logging of Red Cedar. Bengalee Creek (the creek under the bridge on Koloona Drive) was the main port for cedar collection in the Cambewarra region. Remains of the concrete dock can still be seen as can many, many tree stumps throughout the Reserve.

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By Jim Wallis, edited by Len White (2018).

Robert Condie, the son of William Condie and Jane Scobie, was born circa 1803 in Stirling, Scotland. He was baptized on 30 April 1803 at St Ninians, Stirling. He appears to be the eldest of six children. He married on 27 November 1827 in Kircaldy, Fifeshire to Jean Bell. Jean was the daughter of Hugh Bell and Elizabeth Reedy and was born in Kings Kettle, Fifeshire circa 1803. They had seven children:

1. Elizabeth born 1829, Kircaldy
2. Jane born 1831, Kircaldy
3. Janet born 1834, Larfon, Fife
4. Isabelle born 1836, Largon
5. Helen Anne born 1839, Dysart, Fife
6. Robert born 1840, Dysart
7. Mary born 1842, Dysart

 
Robert and Jean decided to immigrate to Australia with their young family. Robert described himself as a farm labourer who could read and write. They sailed from London on 23 February 1849 on the ship “Diana”. The 574 ton vessel was registered in Liverpool. They arrived at Port Jackson in good health on 9 June 1849, a full 105 days later.
 
They had travelled to Australia on “Diana” with:
36 married couples,
35 single men,
48 single women,
34 boys aged between 1 and 14 years,
31 girls aged between 1 and 14 years,
3 male infants, and
4 female infants.
 
As with many other passengers, the Condie family travelled steerage. The only cabin passengers on the voyage were Mr Locker and the Folden family. Travelling steerage, the Condies would have endured very cramped living conditions. Being a farm labourer Robert would have also brought with him tools and implements which would have taken up even more room.
 
Soon after arriving in New South Wales, Robert Condie purchased 44 acres and 2 roods on the banks of the Shoalhaven River at Longreach as it was then called. He named the property “Bellfield” presumably after Jean, his wife.

A PAGE IN MY LIFE - BY MRS ENA SOWTER
(Collected by Jim Walliss) (Edited by Len White 2018)
 
I was born on my parents’ farm, “Bellfield”, Longreach, on the Shoalhaven River. I was the fifth child in a family of eight. Because I was the delicate child, my grandmother, Grannie Condie took me to her farm further up the river at Burrier where she and two of my aunts raised me. My upbringing was very strict and deeply religious. Being separated from a big family, I was dreadfully lonely and terribly shy. It was an agony to live.
 
I attended the Burrier School which taught about twenty-five pupils. There were the Lymbreys, Hughes, Thurgates, Mottrams and Crawshaws. My first teacher was a Mr Southwell, then Mr Williams and later Mr Waples. Mr Waples, besides being a teacher, also taught us all about the bees. However, he neglected to teach us anything about the birds! To get to school, I had to walk two and a half miles and cross the Shoalhaven River. One day on the way to school, an aeroplane flew overhead. I was very excited as I had never seen a plane before. I ran nearly all the way just to keep it in sight.

​​A launch went to Burner in those days to pick up the cream and other farm produce. The launch captain, Alex Weir, had a beautifully carved bullock horn of which he was very proud.  He would blow the horn whenever he was nearing the wharf to let us know that he was coming. In later years, trucks took over the transport of produce as they were much quicker than the launch. The increased speed offered by road transport meant that, instead of just sending cream, the farmers were now able to send milk as well. Early on, the butter factory was situated on the southern side of the River near the bridge. It was later shifted to Bomaderry near the Railway Station.

​After leaving school, I went to Tech College situated upstairs in the Nowra School of Arts to learn dressmaking, tailoring and white work. I rode thirteen miles each way on horseback to
Nowra, passing bullock teams hauling logs out of the bush to take to the mill in Bomaderry. Many times the stars were out before I left Nowra for the long ride home, as I was too shy to ask what I was supposed to do during the week. When I reached the top of the mountain on the way home, it was often so dark I could not see the horse's head. I would let the reins loose and let my noble horse take me safely home.
 
When I turned nineteen (1925), I went to Sydney where I worked throughout the depression. It was nothing to see furniture piled up on footpaths when people were evicted from their homes because they could not pay their rent. They would end up at a place called Happy Valley at La Perouse and build themselves make shift homes out of sheets of iron, tin, tea chests, corn bags or anything they could get hold of. I was amazed how neat and tidy they made these places.
 
In 1935, I married Charles “Chick” Sowter and worked with him in his Dry Cleaning business at Paddington. We had three children: Paul, Deidre and Janean. “Chick” joined the Army in 1942 and I returned to the Shoalhaven, living in Bomaderry. On “Chick's” return from the services, he and I purchased a house in Osborne Street, Nowra which was my home for forty years. Unfortunately, my husband died in 1973. The following year, 1974, I went on a world trip. It was on Friday, 13 December 1985 that I moved into Manning House where I have found some good friends and neighbours.

​THE CONDIES - BY NELL WATSON
(Collected by Jim Walliss) (Edited by Len White 2018)
 
In 1849, my Great Grandfather came to Australia from Dysads, Scotland. He sailed in the ship “Diane” with his wife and six daughters and son aged between 18 years and six months. He settled on a property at Bellfield, Longreach on the Shoalhaven River, about 8 miles west of Nowra.  The property was passed down to the eldest son in each generation, never to be sold or mortgaged.

The Condie Kitchen Building in the 1980's. It was burnt down by vandals in the mid 1990's. Only a water tank and some corrugated iron are visible today.
​When two elderly aunts of my father died, he inherited the property. The aunts were buried in a private graveyard on the property together with nine other members of the Condie family. The house was built with slabs of wood cut with a pit saw and the roof was made of wooden shingles. It backed onto the river and faced the rainforest and slips. There was an unbroken view of the river as far as the eye could see and it was a beautiful area.

​​In keeping with the homes of that period, the kitchen was built away from the main house because of the heat and the risk of fire. It remained that way until long after my father took over the property. A good 18 feet separated the kitchen from the main house and I always said they were divorced. There was a mad dash between buildings whenever it rained. There were two fire places in the kitchen – a stove in one end and an open fire in the other. Mum seldom used the stove; she preferred to use the camp ovens on the open fire. In one camp oven, she used to bake scones, bread and damper made with homemade yeast. They were always good to eat. The other two camp ovens were used for main meals. The fire seldom went out as there was always a big back log burning. We also always had plenty of water.
 
The house had 3 bedrooms and a loungeroom with a fireplace. The loungeroom was rarely used. We lived mainly in the kitchen. Before Dad added the bathroom to the house, we all bathed in a big round tub in the kitchen. Mum made all our clothes and these were washed outside in a big boiler over an open fire. The water was drawn from a well in a four gallon kerosene tin. We had to depend on tank water for drinking and cooking. During droughts, water had to be brought to the house in a 50 gallon tank on a horse-drawn slide.

We always had plenty to eat. We had a few head of cattle and always made our own butter and cheese. When a beast was killed we gave some to the neighbours, used what we could fresh and salted the rest in a big cask. We had no ice chests and the nearest we had to a refrigerator was a big box with a smaller one inside and wet sand in between. We had ducks, turkeys, chooks and sometimes geese. Foxes were bad and, one morning, we found dead ducks all over the yard. The gate had been left open and the foxes had cleaned up the lot, only taking a couple away.
 
In season, we grew corn which was husked and thrashed by a hand-turned machine. We kept what we needed and the rest was bagged and loaded onto a launch to be taken to Bomaderry and sold. The corn we kept was cracked on a hand-operated machine then sifted. The fine grain was used for porridge and bread and the rest was given to the chooks. We grew our own vegetables and fruit. Mum always had a well-stocked cupboard of jams and preserves. One day, the peaches on the riverbank were ready for picking. We kiddies went with baskets to collect them but someone had beaten us to it; there wasn't a peach left!

​We were poor but were seldom sick. If we did get sick, Mum always had her own remedies. One time, my brother had worms. Mum's treatment was a drop of turps on a spoonful of sugar one morning and a dose of blue bottle castor oil the next morning. Later in the day after giving him the castor oil, she had asked if it had worked. My brother answered, “Too right. I squatted on a flat rock down the paddock and the worms came out so fast they knocked their brains out.”
 
There was plenty to do when the work was done. At night, we would play cards, draughts and other games. The girls crocheted and did fancy work. We also read a lot. Kerosene lamps were used for light as that was all we had.

The barn was occasionally empty, so, on one such occasion, we young fry decided to have a party in it. During the party, a young chap told me I was wanted outside but said he didn't know who it was that wanted to see me. Out I went out and there was a ragged fellow, as black as coal, keeping well in the shadows. He asked when we were going to eat. I told him he had better beat it fast but then he started to argue. Finally, he laughed and I knew it was the father of one of the young lads from across the River. For punishment, we dragged him in and made him stay with all us young ones. Still keen to play tricks, he left our party before his sons taking the good boat in which they had come while leaving them a small, leaky punt! He never let me live it down that I had ordered him off our place.

​There were many lovely walks on the property and I remember one day coming home from a walk. I was in my early 20's at the time and we had a big, red bull. He was a bad tempered beast and he hated me as much as I hated him. He roamed free in the paddocks so, whenever I went for a walk, I carried a rifle in case we met. One day it happened. I was on my way home and we did meet face to face. He bellowed, his nostrils flared and he had a real mean look in his eyes. Scraping the dirt with his hooves, he looked every inch as evil as he was. I made for the nearest tree and luckily was able to climb it, taking the rifle with me. He took up position beneath the tree and refused to budge. It looked like I was caught as I was out of earshot and sight of home. I fired a shot into his ribs. He just snorted, turned around a few times but didn’t go – he just stayed there glaring at me. I fired another shot and this time he took off into the bush. He didn’t show up again for about a week. It wasn't long after that Dad shot him. I think he felt that one of us had to go. Even then the brut remained as bullheaded as he had always been. He didn’t die on the spot like any decent animal would do. He trotted away, dropped dead at the side of a hollow and rolled down into a clump of blackberry bushes. With six mouths to feed, Dad had to use every means to make a living so we brushed off the blackberry vines and removed the hide. It had a few bullet holes in it and we didn't expect to get much for it. We actually got top price! The hide must have been as tough as the bull inside it. Dad always said that it was the lead in the hide they paid for.

The school was about 4 miles from our home and we went on horseback, two on one horse. It was a one-teacher school with pupils from infants to sixth grade. Like all school kids, we had our squabbles. One day, my brother and I branched off at the post office on the way home. Mum was there with a horse and sulky so I was able to go home in style. Dave trotted ahead on the horse but pulled up suddenly, the father of one of the school kiddies came out of the bush with a stock whip in his hand. He pulled up short when he saw Mum and told her that he was going to teach us a lesson. I’m sure he would have used it if Mum had not been there and I know the horse would have bolted.
 
Once, my brother was going to a farm a few miles away to milk cows. My pony had given him the run around the day before so he said he would take her and knock the gallop out of her. I caught her, took her to a tea tree scrub, tied her up, went home and climbed into the chimney in the lounge room to wait until he left. He had cooled clown when he came home but there was no way I would tell him about my hiding place.

Sunday was always a no play day. One year, Xmas Day fell on a Sunday and Santa had left a cricket set. The two eldest brothers came home from the farms where they were employed and we slipped out to the paddock in front of the house to have a game. My father came and sat on the front steps. We knew he was there but didn’t let on that we had seen him. We all thought “this is it” when the ball rolled up to his feet. Our hearts stopped. Instead, he picked up the ball, walked towards us and said, “I think have a bowl now”. From then on, we were allowed to play games an Sunday and he would often join in.
 
At one point, a young chap used to regularly call on my sister. She simply could not make him understand that she wasn’t interested in him. One night after supper, she disappeared, apparently taking a sheet with her. As Joe came up the hill in the pitch dark to about opposite our private graves on his way home, she walked out in front of him with the sheet draped over her. He galloped back down the hill. Mum told him it must have been a white goat that he had seen. My brother finally took him past the graves. When he didn't arrive home on time, his uncle went looking for him and found him sitting in the middle of the road outside the public cemetery with a stick in his hand. My sister never let on that she was the ghost and Joe never came back.

We always thought that the city folk were as green in the country as the country folk were in the city. A couple of fellows came up from the city and one had never used a gun. One of our guns kicked like a mule and so that was the one the visitor got. He wasn't told to hold it firm against his shoulder. He fired and landed flat on his back. He never used a gun again. He was later given a horse with a loose girth. When he leaned to one side, so did the saddle and he hit the ground.
 
Another time a city chap came on holidays with us. He went to the river to have a swim in the nuddy. One of the boys slipped down, picked up his clothes and took them home. Stark naked, the visitor made his way to the house, rushed inside, tripped over my sister who was polishing the floor, fell flat on his face and crawled into his room. Thinking he would get even with my brothers when they went swimming, he went to the river to take their clothes, only to find that they had taken them out to a big rock a long way offshore. On a different occasion, we had a city couple come to spend their honeymoon with us and all the locals tin kettled them.

​My natural grandmother who lived further up the river at Riversdale tells the story of an Aborigine who lived close by. His name was Billy Blue and his wife was Fanny. Billy would take Fanny up the river and leave her on the bank while he disappeared into the bush. On his return a few hours later, he would always have a scarf full of gold nuggets. There were two hotels at Terara at this time and Billy would drink away his gold at one or other of the hotels. There was a lot of jealousy between the hotel owners about who would get his custom. When the gold was gone he would take another trip into the bush for further scarf loads. There were plenty of rumours about where the gold came from but, when Billy died after a drinking bout in unknown circumstances, so did the knowledge of where the gold came from. After Billy's death, my grandmother gave Fanny a room in her house. In all the time Fanny stayed there, she never slept in the bed. She always curled up on the floor.
 
The Condie property was eventually sold to Shoalhaven City Council and the NSW Lands Department to be made into a recreational area. In 1982, the family had the ground dedicated where the graves stand. At this time, Shoalhaven City Council placed an enlarged plaque on the stone wall surrounding the Conde Family Graves where four generations who worked and loved the land are laid to rest.

​Bangalee Reserve (1973-Present)

Most of what is now known as Bangalee Reserve was jointly purchased from the Weirs and Condies by the NSW Government and Shoalhaven City Council in 1973.

​In 1988, a bicentennial grant allowed substantial improvements to be made to the Reserve including the construction of the picnic shelters and toilet block. The Heritage Department of the NSW Government also classified the remains of the Condie Homesite as an archaeological site around this time.

Throughout the 1980's and 1990's, much of the former farmland along the Shoalhaven River was regularly mowed meaning that none of the current Black Wattle and Lantana infestations were present. By the early 2000's however, the mowing ceased allowing wattles and lantana to take over most of the former farmland.

In 2005, Bangalee Bushcare was founded. The group initially focused on removing all the lantana and other weeds from the areas surrounding the carpark, picninc ground, and heritage items. It has only been since 2016 that the group has grown sufficiently large to tackle the weeds further along the River.